After her eight-night stint on Broadway with the music from her new album “For the Girls,” Emmy-winning singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth prepares for a big New Year’s Eve night in Los Angeles. Angeles.
The 51-year-old bi-coastal resident has returned to the West Coast promoting her new Hallmark Channel film, “A Christmas Love Story,” which premiered on December 7th. He said he’s been enjoying the sun and feverishly working on curating the perfect New Year’s Eve show that will include “For the Girls” songs and other hits, maybe even a Disney song, as he will present two shows. at 7 a.m. and 10:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 31, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
“It’s going to be a fun show,” Chenoweth said during a phone chat. “I bring my whole band with me and I have two singers (I don’t call them secondary singers, I call them part of my team because they’re actually better than me) and we’ll also have special guests. I’ll have Shoshana Bean and Cheyenne Jackson on the show and only I want it to be a night of nostalgia, I want people to laugh and have fun.I just did all eight nights on Broadway, so I’m going to do mostly this show, which means I’m not just there … let me tell you. It will be a show, not just a concert “.
On her latest album, Chenoweth pays homage to some of the best female singers in history by reimagining and recording her songs along with the help of artists such as Ariana Grande, Reba McEntire, Jennifer Hudson and Dolly Parton.
“Women have had that impact in changing the face of music,” she said. “We’ve been talking since the turn of the century and a lot of them aren’t celebrated in a while, like Dinah Washington, Eva Cassidy, Eydie Gormé, Doris Day, Barbra Streisand and Lesley Gore.”
He played McEntire and Hudson to sing “I’m a Woman” and was able to talk about Parton with a duet of one of his all-time favorite songs, “I Will Always Love You.”
“Sometimes I keep listening to the album and I say to myself,‘ This is her, she’s really into this song, ’” Chenoweth said with a laugh.
He was also excited to work with Grande on “You Don’t Own Me” as well.
“I’ve been thinking about Ariana for a long time,” he said. “I wanted to do a song with her, but I had to find one that suited us and I went out with‘ You Don’t Own Me ’, which me and my girls will sing on New Year’s Eve with choreography. Help me! But Ariana did such a fantastic job with such a classic song. We are such different artists, but we are the same. It’s weird what you learn when you sing with artists who are at the forefront of your game and how good it is that they combine and fit into a certain style and all the singers did that on this album. ”
Chenoweth said 2020 has been a year full of changes and transitions and, for a woman, it is “an interesting time to be alive.” As encouraged as she had been working with so many female artists on her new album, she was also delighted to see what fellow singer-songwriters Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires were doing with the country music supergroup The Highwomen course .
“I love it, I love it, I love it,” Chenoweth said. “Putting all these girls together, I had no idea she (Carlile) was doing it at the same time she was doing the album, but there’s room for all of them and there should be.”
Heading for the holidays and into the New Year, Chenoweth is watching Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies, despite having starred in one this season and spending time with family.
“There’s something comforting about these movies,” he said. “The way they do their sets and their stories, there’s always a nice bow wrapped around the end and it makes you feel good. One of the things I like most about Hallmark movies is that they’re not Shakespeare, but they’re incredibly significant. Somehow you can’t help but feel so happy and I dare say there may be some tears in our film, but they are happy tears.
He also plans to make a serious commitment to his New Year’s resolution for 2021. His goal is to get in shape to help relieve the pain of some of his previous injuries and increase upper body strength. in case he decides to join survivor Bear Grylls on his show. , “Running Wild with Bear Grylls,” where he takes celebrities to nature to see if they’ll survive.
“I’ve been watching this show and thinking‘ Could I do this? “I don’t know because I have long nails and wouldn’t eat a snake, but I could take Bear Grylls to a mall on Black Friday and teach him how to survive if he really wanted a good setback. I’m very open to doing that. “
New Year’s Eve with Kristin Chenoweth
When: 19 and 22:30 Tuesday, December 31
On: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles
Tickets: $ 70 to $ 206
Information: 323-850-2000 or laphil.com